Border Song, II: The Arrow in the Stone
塞下曲六首·其二
Sài xià qǔ liù shǒu · qí èr
A general shoots into darkness and searches for his arrow at dawn. Read how the final discovery transforms an uncertain night into a feat of heroic strength.
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Read the original and its translation together. Open a line’s word meanings for a closer look.
About the text and pronunciation
The simplified view changes character forms, not the edition. Notes and sources retain the cited text.
The Chinese source is shown in traditional characters by default, with a simplified view available. Pinyin is modern standard Mandarin, a reading aid, not Tang or Song pronunciation.
Word by word, in the order of the line. A gloss is a crib. It is not the translation.
Word meanings — Line 1
- 林 lín wood
- 暗 àn dark
- 草 cǎo grass
- 驚 jīng startled
- 風 fēng wind
Word meanings — Line 2
- 將 jiāng general
- 軍 jūn general
- 夜 yè night
- 引 yǐn draws
- 弓 gōng bow
Word meanings — Line 3
- 平 píng level
- 明 míng dawn
- 尋 xún search
- 白 bái white
- 羽 yǔ feathers
Word meanings — Line 4
- 沒 mò buried
- 在 zài in
- 石 shí stone
- 棱 léng ridge
- 中 zhōng within
English translation by PoemWell.
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Original
林暗草驚風，
將軍夜引弓。
平明尋白羽，
沒在石棱中。
Translation
The wood is dark; wind startles the grass.
At night the general draws his bow.
In full dawn they search for the white-feathered arrow:
it is buried in the edge of a rock.
Try it from memory
After reading, recall the underlined word or phrase in each line. Say its meaning before opening the answer. These prompts use the text edition printed above.
-
Line 1 · What does the marked word mean?
林暗草驚風，
Pronunciation hint
cǎo
Reveal meaning and translation
草 — grass
The wood is dark; wind startles the grass.
-
Line 3 · What does the marked word mean?
平明尋白羽，
Pronunciation hint
xún
Reveal meaning and translation
尋 — search
In full dawn they search for the white-feathered arrow:
-
Line 4 · What does the marked word mean?
沒在石棱中。
Pronunciation hint
shí
Reveal meaning and translation
石 — stone
it is buried in the edge of a rock.
One more question: what changes?
Compare the opening and closing lines. What changes in the scene, the speaker’s attention, or the feeling? Choose a Chinese word as evidence, then compare your reading with the notes. More than one answer may be reasonable.
Line-by-line notes →Self-check at your own pace. No score or progress is saved. Open only the answers you want included when printing.
Line-by-line notes
Lines 1–2 · A shot in poor light
林暗 gives the first disturbance its conditions. The grass seems startled as wind moves through it. 驚 makes that movement feel alive, and the general draws his bow while the cause is hard to see. The first two lines give the disturbance and response without naming what he aims at.
Lines 3–4 · What dawn allows them to see
平明 takes the search into daylight. 白羽, white feathers, identifies the arrow by the part that can still be seen, which the English makes explicit. 沒在石棱中 then gives the part that is hidden, buried in the edge of a stone. The scene recalls Li Guang’s shot at a rock he took for a tiger. Knowing the story helps explain why the grass and darkness matter. The poem saves the rock for the last line and leaves the tiger to the allusion. Records of the Grand Historian, chapter 109
Form and tone
The complete second five-character quatrain has a night-and-morning structure. The first pair gives perception and action; the second gives a search and an astonishing discovery. Withholding the rock until the last line lets the reader experience the earlier uncertainty.
See jueju for the larger formal pattern. Pinyin gives modern Mandarin pronunciation; a historical level/oblique grid is not inferred from those modern tones.
Historical context
Lu Lun’s border-song sequence uses inherited heroic episodes. The account of Li Guang shooting into a rock appears in Records of the Grand Historian, chapter 109. Lu Lun compresses that episode into a night shot and a morning discovery, letting the arrow supply the proof of extraordinary strength. The page presents the full four-line unit.
Continue with Lu Lun and the frontier reading path. Compare Border Song, V: The Hunt and Border Song, III: Snow on Bows and Blades using the reading connections below.
Sources
樂府詩集/093卷 — Chinese text. Checked against the linked Wikisource transcription. The displayed traditional text follows this reading. Punctuation and line breaks are editorial. Translation, glosses, and reading notes are original to PoemWell.
English translation, gloss, and notes by PoemWell. The translation is original to this site.
The Chinese source is shown in traditional characters by default, with a simplified view available. Pinyin is modern standard Mandarin, a reading aid, not Tang or Song pronunciation.
Updated .
Cite this reading
Lu Lun. “Border Song, II: The Arrow in the Stone” (塞下曲六首·其二). PoemWell. English translation by PoemWell. Updated .
https://poemwell.org/poems/border-song-lu-lun-two
Credit the poet for the Chinese original and PoemWell for this translation and commentary. Use the permanent page link above; source editions are listed separately.